(I once heard it claimed that the importation of electric guitars was prohibited during the 1950s, presumably because of moral panics about American-style teenage rebellion infecting our youth. I haven't seen any documentation on this though. Can anybody confirm or refute this?) (ta, Graham)
Obviously that 5% tax is an APRA requested copyright tax. Any guitar purchased is obviously going to be used to play crappy covers of APRA controlled songs and they want their cut.
Unless I'm mistaken, it appears drum kits also incur a 5% duty. Obviously trying to protect young minds from that deadly devil beat.
Oz did have a small guitar industry 30 years or so ago. Matin for one. The factory used to be Kew or somewhere like that. Matin made classical & electric guitars then. I had a classical from them for a while. It had a nice low action, but was a bit "quiet". Alan